Political Viewpoint

By Coun Danielle Belton, Chairman of Rayleigh Town Council and Deputy Leader of the Conservative Group on Rochford District Council.

SINCE I last penned an article for this newspaper a lot has happened!

 The local elections have taken place with a new Administration being led by the Liberal Democrats and non-aligned members to govern and run the district of Rochford Council.

 We have also had a General Election which, as predicted, brought about a change in Government to one which is now led by Sir Keir Starmer of the Labour Party.

 The night of 4th July 2024 was a bad night for the Conservative Party losing a number of MPs. Locally however, the residents of Rayleigh and Wickford returned the Right Honourable Mark Francois MP as its constituency Member of Parliament, for which I and my Rochford District Conservative Group were extremely thankful.

 Over the course of 2024/25 Rochford District Council have the task of producing their Local Plan, which is a piece of work that has been ongoing for some time. The last coalition administration of Rochford Council, which excluded the Conservative Group, seem happy to allow this process to drag on, which will undoubtedly see our local housing targets double under the new Labour Government.

 In a Council meeting in February I, and other members of my group pushed for a revised timeline which would help protect us from these inflated numbers and give residents some assurances of what is to come.

 In an interview given by the Council’s leader, Councillor James Newport, to the local press on Saturday 13th July, it has become clear that the Lib-Dem policy is for a Garden Village development with thousands of homes in one place.

 What is most worrying with regard to Councillor Newport’s statement, is that he has given no indication as to the likely location of a Garden Village. Consequently, one can only presume that the area of Rayleigh is under serious threat, given sites such as Dollyman’s Farm and land to the West of Wolsey Park.

 Following the King’s Speech on 17th July 2024, when it set out the new Labour Government’s proposed planning reforms, (which had been so widely promoted by them for two years when they were in opposition), this was then followed by the Planning Minister, on 30th July, in an open letter to the Planning Inspectorate stating the importance of having updated Local Plans, and this responsibility fell on local Planning Authorities.

 With the aforementioned in mind, and warnings from the Conservative planning spokesperson, Coun Ian Ward both in May 2023, and then reiterated in a full council meeting in February 2024, the then Leader, Coun John Mason, supported the amendment put forward by the Conservative Group that the Local Plan timetable should be brought forward to protect the district’s greenbelt from being concreted over.

 On 4th August, there was a Planning Policy Committee meeting, and you could have been forgiven in believing that the Lib-Dem led Administration would have finally woken up to the threat that they knew the National Planning Policy Framework consultation document set out new housing targets for Rochford District Council, which would almost double the previous targets.

 Furthermore, there was an item on the agenda which formed part of the Local Plan process whereby the Administration, in their infinite wisdom, decided to defer the item apparently being in a state of shock at the far-reaching implications of the National Planning Policy Framework.

 It is quite clear that the two previous political Administrations had quite simply been asleep at the wheel for the previous eighteen months, and had not heeded the warnings issued by the Conservative group and which had a clear plan to deliver the housing needs of the district.

 Although new to the role of Leader, Coun Newport served as Deputy in the previous Administration and would have surely given officers clear direction on matters such as the Local Plan?

 The Labour Government also seems to have followed the Rochford District Council Conservative group’s previous policy of development on brownfield land first. This is at least something we do agree on.

 However, something we as a Conservative group have pushed back on, is the new term which has been introduced referring to ‘grey field’ which is essentially a mechanism to concrete over our fields.

 This is why in the recent National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) consultation, my group called for this term to be removed altogether to protect our rural community within the Rochford district.

 I fear that as a result of the delays in concluding our Local Plan in a timelier manner, we will now see a number of speculative planning applications coming forward that will be hard to defend. These will bring very little infrastructure to the area, which we desperately need as part of any new development.

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